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Monthly Archives: February 2010

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I’m slowly regaining my coherence this morning after a long day yesterday at the ChannelFireball.com February 5K event. I made top sixteen using a Junk (that is, B/G/W) deck that I’ll be writing about in my column this week.
You can see me and the deck in action in the coverage of the Swiss rounds, here. And I do mean, “see,” as in addition to being the round two feature match, there’s a picture of me playing at the bottom of the page.
If you look at the archetype breakdown for the main flight, I’m the sole “Junk” representative there.
I exited in the round of sixteen (which you can also read about here) after a somewhat harrowing, one-and-a-half hour match against an Unearth deck. I must admit I was not particularly thinking about Unearth when I put my deck together for the tournament. I lost in the round of sixteen to Magic TV host Tristan Shaun Gregson, who was playing Boss Naya.
I’ll have more on all of this in my column this week. I had a great time all day Saturday, sparring with the kind of fun crowd I’ve come to expect at ChannelFireball and Superstars events.
Also, for those who are in the greater Bay Area and also into Legacy, you may be happy to hear that Superstars will now be hosting regular Legacy tournaments. You can read more about that here.

Want to follow the ridiculously large GP Madrid?2,220 players!
You can always keep track of the official coverage, of course. But given that the event is being held in Madrid, you probably also want to check in with MagicMadrid and, more specifically, the twitter feed of Juan Miguel Garcia.
This will be a chance for you to stretch your Spanish language skills, or perhaps your Google Translate skills (conveniently, I actually took Spanish back when I was in high school).
My favorite update so far:
“De momento no hay feature match ni side events por falta de espacio en la sala”At the moment there isn’t a feature match or any side events because we don’t have room in the hall
Indeed. I’m waiting for round four to start, so we can follow the performance of our attending ChannelFireball writers.

I’ll be heading off in a little less than an hour to the first flight of the day for the February ChannelFireball 5K down at Superstars in San Jose. If you can make it today, I encourage you to come on down and enjoy some Standard action with the great Superstars crowd while battling for, well, $5K in prizes.Click here for more information. The main flight today starts at 10am, with a second flight at 4pm, to be followed by the top 32.Click here to read ongoing coverage of the event. Last night’s archetype breakdown is currently posted, with a strong showing for Jund, Naya, and U/W Control.

The discussion on tournament rule knowledge that I mentioned in my tournament primer continues over at David’s PT San Diego article. One common thread that appears in the conversation is the idea that it is strictly the responsibility of players to know all the tournament rules when they show up for an event.
Commenter Delha said this:It

Over at ChannelFireball.com, David Ochoa’s latest article has sparked a big discussion based on this little bit of text:I knew that some people had dropped in the early rounds at X-1. That gave me a glimmer of hope that the number of X-1 people would be able to accommodate a draw in round seven. When the standings were put up, I found that to not be the case. Pairings went up and I went to my match. I had been paired up against the only 6-0. I asked if he wanted to concede after explaining to him that he was a lock for top even with a loss. He said that he wouldn

Want some Extended tips? Want to see some Pro Tour photojournalism? Check out this week’s In Development, where I talk about taking on both of the PTQs held last weekend at San Diego, as well as include some pics and a link to my full, two hundred picture photoessay covering the Pro Tour experience.

Thanks to the search acumen of Kelly Reid of Quiet Speculation, I have been reunited with my original DCI number. I just got off the phone with Wizards’ customer service, who have started the process of unifying the original number with the one I was issued when I got back into the game.
Naturally, I’m keeping the old one.
This means I’ll be moving from ten digits to a much more svelte five digits.
Also, my rating’s going to take a bit of a hit. Turns out I wasn’t quite as good back in 1995.

I’ve updated my Pro Tour San Diego photo set, so go on by and check them out. Some of these may also be showing up on Channel Fireball in the near future. Here are some highlights:
Watanabe drafts a Jace.
Tom Ross plays hard for the win in round sixteen. He just missed the top eight (ninth!).
Colossal Magic on Saturday night.
Lauren Lee (Mulldrifting) plays in a public draft event.
Do I keep this hand of six? (For the record, he made a good keep, but lost.)
Ben Seck (TBS) waits to see if his Zoo opponent will burn him out after TBS went all-in on the Marit Lage token.
The burn doesn’t quite do the trick, and Ben wins the PTQ.

After scrubbing out of the PTQ this morning (0-2 drop, making it a particularly brief experience) I got myself credentialed as press and zipped around taking pictures of the main event. Many of these will be going up on ChannelFireball as soon as my illustrious editor can manage it – he’s on a flight to Alaska right now to go take down a PTQ (seriously).
You can get the full photoset here. Here are some fun highlights:
Tomoharu Saitou watches over 2005 World Champion Katsuhiro Mori’s shoulder. Mori’s opponent called a judge on him about five minutes later after Katsuhiro spent several minutes staring at his cards, trying to figure out how not to lose.
Stoneforge Mystic is the MVP of the Standard portion of this tournament, seeking out Basilisk Collars and Behemoth Sledges.
Dead Reckoning and Death’s Shadow. It’s a combo!